One technique for rendering 3D video content presents two different views separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. By presenting the two different views simultaneously, this gives the viewer the perception of 3D depth. This technique is commonly referred to as stereoscopy.
The stereoscopic 3D viewing experience is becoming a key part of film production and an increasing consideration in commercial television and home entertainment. Stereoscopic technology also has applications in a number of fields including biology and medical imaging. In addition, stereoscopic technology is increasingly used to provide users an interactive virtual reality experience.
Virtual reality is a computer technology that replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user's physical presence in the environment and, in some cases, enables the user to interact with the environment. Typically, virtual reality content is displayed on a computer monitor or with a virtual reality device such as a virtual reality headset, which is also commonly referred to as a head-mounted display. The user may interact with the environment by interacting with the virtual reality device, through the use of a standard input device such as a keyboard or mouse, or through a multimodal device such as a wired glove. As the user interacts with the environment, three-dimensional (3D) images are provided by virtual reality software that accesses virtual reality content.
One standard that is commonly used to encode stereoscopic content is the multiview video coding (MVC) extension of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (ISO/IEC MVC 2008). However, a number of devices are incapable of decoding stereoscopic content encoded according to MVC. This presents a significant challenge to content providers that offer stereoscopic content to their users.